In an increasingly security-conscious world, protecting access to information and/or to systems from unwanted discovery and/or corruption is a major issue for both consumers and businesses. Many consumer or business systems may be vulnerable to unwanted access when the level of security provided within the system is not sufficient for providing the appropriate protection. In this regard, consumer systems, such as multimedia systems, for example, may require the use of integrated architectures that enable security management mechanisms for defining and administering user rights or privileges in order to provide the necessary protection from unwanted access.
An example of a multimedia system that may be accessed by many different users may be a set-top box where manufacturers, vendors, operators, and/or home users may have an interest in accessing at least some limited functionality of the system. In some instances, a single device, such as a security processor for example, may be utilized to administer security operations in the multimedia system. The security processor may operate independently of other components in the multimedia system when determining rights or privileges of different users such as vendors and/or end users to various features in the multimedia system. For example, vendors may have limited access to some of the functions that may be accessible by the manufacturer. End users such as home users may only have access to a subset of the vendors' access rights. Also, some vendors may only have access to a subset of the access rights that may be provided by a manufacturer. In some instances, secure operations may be managed by specifying, in a single location, secure conditions for each security component supported by the system.
However, there are still users of multimedia systems who may have limited or no security requirements in their applications. Nevertheless, these users may utilize multimedia systems with integrated architectures that enable security management mechanisms for defining and administering user rights or privileges. Security-enabled multimedia systems may require boot up code that may be significantly more complex than what may be generally needed for non-secure applications. Moreover, the technical and maintenance support that may be needed for security-enabled multimedia systems may be more costly and/or may be provided in a more limited capacity to a user who utilizes them in non-secure applications.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with some aspects of the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.